Details

Subject(s)

• Arab Spring, 2010- [Browse]
• Arab countries—Politics and government—21st century [Browse]

Summary note

Why the conventional wisdom about the Arab Spring is wrongThe Arab Spring promised to end dictatorship and bring self-government to people across the Middle East. Yet everywhere except Tunisia it led to either renewed dictatorship, civil war, extremist terror, or all three. In The Arab Winter, Noah Feldman argues that the Arab Spring was nevertheless not an unmitigated failure, much less an inevitable one. Rather, it was a noble, tragic series of events in which, for the first time in recent Middle Eastern history, Arabic-speaking peoples took free, collective political action as they sought to achieve self-determination.Focusing on the Egyptian revolution and counterrevolution, the Syrian civil war, the rise and fall of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and the Tunisian struggle toward Islamic constitutionalism, Feldman provides an original account of the political consequences of the Arab Spring, including the reaffirmation of pan-Arab identity, the devastation of Arab nationalisms, and the death of political Islam with the collapse of ISIS. He also challenges commentators who say that the Arab Spring was never truly transformative, that Arab popular self-determination was a mirage, and even that Arabs or Muslims are less capable of democracy than other peoples.Above all, The Arab Winter shows that we must not let the tragic outcome of the Arab Spring disguise its inherent human worth. People whose political lives had been determined from the outside tried, and for a time succeeded, in making politics for themselves. That this did not result in constitutional democracy or a better life for most of those affected doesn't mean the effort didn't matter. To the contrary, it matters for history—and it matters for the future.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references (pages 165-179) and index.

Source of description

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (viewed on October 1, 2020)

Language note

In English.

Contents

• Frontmatter
• CONTENTS
• Preface
• Chapter 1. The People Want
• Chapter 2. Tahrir and the Problem of Agency
• Chapter 3. Syria and the Question of Fault
• Chapter 4. The Islamic State as Utopia
• Chapter 5. Tunisia and Political Responsibility
• Afterword. Catharsis?
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index

Show 9 more Contents items

ISBN

• 0-691-22793-4
• 0-691-20144-7

LCCN

2019030393

OCLC

1110122377

Doi

• 10.1515/9780691201443

Statement on language in description

Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage. Read more...